How to Draw Digital Cartoons: A step-by-step

How to Draw Digital Cartoons: A step-by-step

This inspiring book provides a detailed guide to drawing, colouring and manipulating your own digital cartoons. It is packed full with professional advice, fantastic examples and practical step-by-step techniques that show how to create amazing characters and worlds.

The book begins by introducing the essential equipment and types of computer software needed, and how to use them to develop sensational pictures, and there are plenty of informative screen grabs and illustrations to help you achieve the results you want. A useful guide to digital techniques follows, which explains how to colour a scanned image, how to combine different media, how to add speech bubbles, and much more.

The main section features a range of projects that offer the opportunity to practice the techniques, and produce a variety of cartoon styles such as graphic novel, futuristic, manga and science fiction. There are also projects for creating caricatures as well as animal portraits and simple animation.

Throughout the book there are over 200 amazing drawings and 70 step-by-step exercises which show the artist how to build and develop their skills, and give shape to endless visual possibilities.

Author description

Curtis Tappenden is a professional painter and illustrator, with an international reputation for his versatile editorial and book illustrations. He also works in the art department of The Mail On Sunday newspaper in London, and teaches on the National Diploma in Art and Design and Foundation courses at the University College For The Creative Arts in Kent. He has a Masters Degree in Narrative, Sequential Illustration from the University Of Brighton (1992) and is fascinated by images created within measured time frames. Curtis's wit and humour are evident in his own drawing and most recently he has diversified into art performance, combining large, immediate paintings with stand-up poetry, often outworked with comedians. He has illustrated numerous books and has written 16 of his own titles on art and design practice.
Ivan Hissey studied design and illustration at Brighton University and the Royal College of Art, and has illustrated continuously in a wide range of media for over 30 years. He has been using computers for more than 10 years and his illustrations, caricatures and cartoons have appeared in books and magazines of every description. He has taught design in London and Sussex Art Colleges and is particularly interested in mixed media illustration. He enjoys collecting printed ephemera from the 1950's and has a large collection of vintage children's board games.